Long Beach arena where the Ice Dogs play holds 12,000 for hockey, would be big enough for now...have not gotten to a game over there yet but people say it's nice...also is not too far from the current location in anaheim, so may not lose too many fans.

When I was over last month some guys kept saying the storm should just play at the convention center downtown...but not sure if they meant the LA convention center, or if the Anaheim convention center has an arena inside.
But it sounded like the capacity would be too small anyways.

i read in another thread that anaheim may be moving to LA or Longbeach because the pond dosent wana spend cash on marketing. is there any truth to this?

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This sounds like an example of how the NHL lockout has hurt an NLL team. Without the Pond getting income from the Mighty Ducks, they need to cut back on costs and, so, aren't promoting the Storm.

It is a shame in a way. The Pond not forking over the $ for marketing is somewhat indicative of their non-belief in the success that such marketing would have - and they may be right because the Storm aren't exactly winners. If the Storm had been more successful on the floor, then the Pond might have been willing to promote more given the lockout. The saddest part is that the Storm are actually getting better and deserve the marketing for next season.

Long Beach arena where the Ice Dogs play holds 12,000 for hockey, would be big enough for now...have not gotten to a game over there yet but people say it's nice...also is not too far from the current location in anaheim, so may not lose too many fans.

When I was over last month some guys kept saying the storm should just play at the convention center downtown...but not sure if they meant the LA convention center, or if the Anaheim convention center has an arena inside.
But it sounded like the capacity would be too small anyways.

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Long Beach would be good for a few reasons...

Long Beach is in the middle and not far at all from the affluent OC beach cities and the affluent "South Bay" beach cities of LA county. Kids who'd have been exposed to lax and be most interested in lax would most likely live in these areas.

Long Beach is better freeway-wise too. If you take a look at the freeways in SoCal, it's almost like "all roads lead to Long Beach". Not quite, but getting to Long Beach is not hard at all. Anaheim, on the other hand, is somewhat out of the way because it is inland. For instance, when I lived in Hermosa Beach (a South Bay beach city) it'd take me almost an hour (in decent traffic) to get to my cousin who lived in Orange (right next door to Anaheim). I took the I-405 to the CA-22 Garden Grove FRWY... Long Beach, on the other hand, has the 405 running right thru it. My cousin use to always say, "You wanna live west of the 405."

Long Beach Arena also happens to have two minor league tenants (the ECHL Ice Dogs and ABA Jam) that take up a fairly large number of arena dates as it is. While the ABA could fold at any minute and free up some time, let's not hold our breath. I realize we're just asking for 8 Saturday nights, but I'm not sure if they would be willing to give up even that much. The Pond may not be doing much to promote the Storm, but at least we know the building's available (for one more year, at least.) If the Pond won't do the promoting, we'll just have to get the word out ourselves, I guess.

Why is the pond being blamed for the marketing of the storm? they dont own them, so why spend the money? the owners should be spending the money on marketing.

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Arrowhead Pond owns a piece of the Storm, and that was part of their conditions for moving there...Arrowhead Pond owns the Ducks and the Storm...at least that's how the NLL reported it (or I interpreted it, take your pick) when the Storm moved...

Arrowhead Pond owns a piece of the Storm, and that was part of their conditions for moving there...Arrowhead Pond owns the Ducks and the Storm...at least that's how the NLL reported it (or I interpreted it, take your pick) when the Storm moved...

Not that it matters now with the Storm ceasing operations, but the Long Beach Arena would not have been viable, in my opinion. It's an aging arena with sightlines that aren't great -- and the arena is almost 45 years old without any major renovations over that period. It's common to find busted seats, and it's just not up to NLL standards.

The Jam actually play at the Long Beach Pyramid on the campus of Long Beach State, a beautiful 5,000 seat basketball-only facility -- it could not be modified for hockey or lacrosse.

The only problem the Storm might have if the team moves to Long Beach is that no one will tell Matt Roik to go away. With Roik in goal, it doesn't matter how much marketing goes into promoting this product. The fans who went to see the Storm last year left in disgust game after game, amazed that a professional could find so many ways to blow late game leads or squash would be rallies by his teammates with his own allowances of goals. The management was nice enough to respond to my many complaints about the--in my opinion--bizarre inadequacies in goal, but nobody seemed to do anything about it, and now the Storm is in "suspension." Told ya so, Storm management.

the Storm are actually getting better and deserve the marketing for next season.

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Sorry, but not true. The team was getting better, yes, but the goaltending was a sad joke. Over and over, Matt Roik would allow late goals to either give back a hard-wrought lead his players had built, or his antics in goal would snuff out a would-be comeback from deficits the Storm players were erasing. I wrote to management and referred to many of the fans, who were actually in attendance, booing Roik for his seemingly insane flailing style in goal. Night after night the fans would leave shaking their heads, trying to get their minds around the fact that Roik had once again allowed numerous late goals and surrendered a possible victory. The team players were getting better, but I seriously doubted Anaheim's goaltending most every game. You had to be here to believe it.

Roik had fantastic potential as goalie. Every game, he gave us two outstanding quarters, sometimes three. His problem wasn't lack of ability, it was lack of staying power. He would fall apart late in the game and undo his own effort. Usually this happened after the other side got an easy goal, and Roik's head seemed to leave the game.

Think about the complaints. "He would give away a hard fought lead." How did the Storm get that "hard fought lead?" By Roik's great goaltending. The problem was they didn't have another good choice. However, given the consistency with which Roik falls apart, I do question why management rarely made late game changes of goalie (they only did it once last season, in a losing effort where they were already too far behind).

The Storm had big weaknesses everywhere, O, D and G. What mystifies me was why Damien Davis had a spot on the roster. I was really hoping for a chance to see what Keenan would do in 2006 to build on the vast improvements he had made.